Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint
Posted: Thu Mar 25, 2021 11:28 pm
That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons bring us some web forums whereupon we can gather
http://octopusoverlords.com/forum/
The political party in charge didn't want to deal with it, that's true. But the nature of what it is and how it worked wasn't in their hands, and there were a lot of factors aside from leadership that affected how it played out. From the article (which I'm still working my way through):
In the US, we're clean, we're fat, we're a hub, we're inland, we're partially northern, we're modern with lots of closed air circulation, we eat badly, we cluster, we're arrogant and see ourselves as invincible, etc.A partial list: There is stochasticity, better known as chance, driven in part by superspreader dynamics, whereby the vast majority of new cases are produced by a thin slice of existing infections and most disease chains simply die out. There is demography, with the skew of lethality so dramatic that many of the world’s younger countries have almost no death toll. There is distribution of comorbidities throughout the population. There is geography, with islands enjoying obvious advantages, and with communities at higher latitudes apparently more at risk, perhaps due to the salubrious effects of sunlight. There is a country’s relationship to its own borders, and who its neighbors are, and its position in the networks of travel and commerce. There is climate, with temperature and especially humidity appearing to shape national outcomes much as they’ve shaped some seasonal rhythms of the disease within countries. There is air conditioning — whether you have it, and what kind. There is what Crotty described to me as a version of the “hygiene hypothesis” — the possibility that regular exposure to pathogens generally might train your immune system like it does your gut biome. There is the catchall of “cultural forces,” covering everything from multigenerational living and employment structures to cheek-kissing and handshakes.
I could go on: residential density, blood type, vitamin D, ICU capacity, proximity to bats. But any time you try to put a finger on a single, dominant factor, the disease slips away, defying reductive models and suggesting counterpoints and counterfactuals: Japan is old, Brazil is largely tropical, England is an island, and there’s hardly any air conditioning in France. And even beyond all of those factors, with relative impacts of unclear scale, there is what the controversial Stanford epidemiologist John Ioannides recently called the “chaos” of the disease — the seemingly random, and still mysterious, dynamics of spread, even beyond stochasticity, which can be at least mathematically modeled.
Robert Redfield, the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said he believed the virus that causes Covid-19 originated from a laboratory in Wuhan, China — contradicting the assessment of the World Health Organization and most public health experts.
In an interview with CNN’s Sanjay Gupta that aired Friday, the former Trump administration official also speculated that the virus began transmitting within central China’s Hubei province in September or October 2019, a potential time frame more in line with mainstream scientific views.
“That’s my own view. It’s only an opinion. I’m allowed to have opinions now,” said Redfield, who served as CDC director from 2018 until the end of former President Donald Trump’s term. He is now a senior adviser for public health to Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan on the state’s pandemic response.
Nearly half of all active #coronavirus cases in Massachusetts are in people under the age of 30. The group with the highest number of new cases are kids and teens
Copied this from the EBG thread.
After making sure we have enough reserves, I'd be amazed if we didn't. As long as there are entire countries unvaccinated right now, we're all still at risk.
Hell yeah brother, cheers from Texas.Kasey Chang wrote: ↑Fri Mar 26, 2021 1:40 pm Still not finding any shots available in San Francisco. Checked all the mass vaccination sites: none have appointments available. NONE of the pharmacies have any either. But then, my only qualification would be I have horrible BMI (which is apparently a valid criteria here).
Yeah, I appear to be eligible now in MA as well, since the current eligible work groups now include prosecutors (not that I need to go to court often, which I assume is the logic behind the category, but I am a prosecutor). But yeah, not a hint of an availability on the state Vaxfinder site. I'm signed up on the pre-registration site and I'm on my doctor's list for when they get doses, so hopefully I'll get a ping on one of those sooner or later.Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Fri Mar 26, 2021 1:53 pmHell yeah, brother! Cheers from Texas.Kasey Chang wrote: ↑Fri Mar 26, 2021 1:40 pm Still not finding any shots available in San Francisco. Checked all the mass vaccination sites: none have appointments available. NONE of the pharmacies have any either. But then, my only qualification would be I have horrible BMI (which is apparently a valid criteria here).
Obesity is the number one predictor of death from Covid so yes, you would qualify. Check with your doctor's office if you can't get an appointment anywhere.Kasey Chang wrote: ↑Fri Mar 26, 2021 1:40 pm Still not finding any shots available in San Francisco. Checked all the mass vaccination sites: none have appointments available. NONE of the pharmacies have any either. But then, my only qualification would be I have horrible BMI (which is apparently a valid criteria here).
And:The immediate challenge for Walensky and other public health officials is to convince Americans weary of pandemic protocols to hold on just a little longer with masks and physical distancing as vaccinations are administered at an average clip of 2.5 million per day. Still, just 14 percent of the U.S. population is fully vaccinated, according to the CDC.
But are Americans, or their elected leaders, listening?
The urgent pleas from public health officials come as a growing number of states have begun to relax mitigation strategies.
"Elected leaders are undermining public health messaging left and right," said Brian Castrucci, president and chief operating officer of the de Beaumont Foundation, a public health nonprofit.
In a statement to NBC News, Walensky acknowledged her team is "competing against messages from states that are pulling back public health measures, like mask-wearing requirements and relaxing limits on in-person dining in restaurants and bars."
"We're also communicating with a fatigued public," she said following Friday's briefing in which she urged people to stay the course.
"We can turn this around, but it will take all of us working together."
Yup. The verdict is in:
It's a gigantic thread (which I hate) but he does make some really important points.Covid Epi Weekly: An Epidemic of Vaccine Inequity
As predicted, a US 4th surge appears to be beginning, fueled by variants and reopening. Cases up 7%. Positivity inching up, to 4.7%. Because of vaccination, deaths won't increase substantially. We must solve vaccine inequity.
...
Two great unknowns:
1/What will humans do–will we lose motivation as vaccines roll out and fail to maintain patience, discipline, and solidarity?
2/What will the virus do–will variants evade the vaccine?
The future isn’t certain, but it’s certain our actions can make it safer.18/
I don't think it sheds any new light, but here's the latest on the nascent surge in MA.
My main takeaway from the long NY Mag story that I linked on the last page is that the nations and states that largely avoided the plague didn't wait until the crisis was upon them to act. Rather, they imposed preventive measures before they were clearly needed. The hardest-hit polities, OTOH, didn't act until it was certainly necessary, by which time it was too late to head off. Even then, they acted hesitantly. And as soon as their surges peaked and started to come down again, they eased up.Public health experts pointed to a number of factors that could be driving infections: increased circulation of a more-contagious variant of the coronavirus; pandemic fatigue, and springtime optimism that have led the public to be less vigilant; and Governor Charlie Baker’s continued loosening of public health guidelines.
Many epidemiologists have warned for weeks that these factors could combine to produce an uptick in cases. Now, with cases rising, they said it is clearer than ever that to avoid a surge, the state must exercise caution and resist the urge to let down our collective guard.
“This was predicted. ... And in my mind, this is all so unnecessary,” said Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health. “It feels like the governor has just stopped listening to public health experts. And I appreciate that he’s got to look at a broad swath of issues, but it still remains a public health problem.”
It's complicated and given how the public seems to process public health nuance, I predict...pain.
How are people who have already had their vaccinations supposed to prove it? From what I've understood, the actual records are inconsistent and shoddy, and the little appointment cards they give you are mostly worthless as proof of anything - there's no security baked into them at all.
To get a passport you either get the vaccine or go through the minimal effort needed to fake proof that you got the vaccine.Blackhawk wrote: ↑Mon Mar 29, 2021 9:06 amHow are people who have already had their vaccinations supposed to prove it? From what I've understood, the actual records are inconsistent and shoddy, and the little appointment cards they give you are mostly worthless as proof of anything - there's no security baked into them at all.
I am fucking disgusted with this. My grandparents had to hide from the Japanese in the Philippines for 4 freaking years, so my family knows damn well we can stomach wearing masks and social distancing for at least that long.
Given the airlines ventilation for the planes, plus your vaccination, you should be alright. For me, I'm not paying money to go to some place that's not warm with beaches and waiters in cute swim trunks serving me Margaritas .malchior wrote: ↑Mon Mar 29, 2021 10:49 am This weekend I was sent some emails from Delta advertising service to Iceland. Iceland is opening themselves to vaccinated tourists. The criteria that Iceland seems to accept as a 'vaccine passport' lines up with the card I got when we got the shots. All the data they ask for is on it. Would I risk a 5 hour flight to find out? Probably not but I will say it is tempting in some capacity.
I agree. The best way to change the minds of resisters is to extend privileges to those who comply -- make them want vaccination for purely selfish reasons. In another month or so, vaccine supply will outstrip demand, and they'll be easy to get...hopefully easier than some bogus certificate.Lorini wrote: ↑Mon Mar 29, 2021 10:33 am I think the government does need to set policy for the use of vaccination passports. I think that commerce should be able to set a requirement for proof of vaccination in non essential cases. I don't think that a grocery store should require proof of vaccination, or a medical facility, or any other essential businesses. But travel like cruise lines would find it to be nearly impossible to return to pre Covid levels without a vaccination requirement. And we'll have to see what the airlines do. On the one hand I can see them wanting a vaccination requirement, but in several situations airline travel is in fact essential and not everyone who won't get a vaccination is able to be medically cleared for one. On the other hand, if Disneyland or a movie theatre says you have to have proof of vaccination to enter, I don't see an issue with that.
We'll see how it shakes out but it's certainly something that needs to be navigated and soon.
I'm more worried I'll get there and they won't like my documents.Lorini wrote: ↑Mon Mar 29, 2021 11:37 amGiven the airlines ventilation for the planes, plus your vaccination, you should be alright. For me, I'm not paying money to go to some place that's not warm with beaches and waiters in cute swim trunks serving me Margaritas .malchior wrote: ↑Mon Mar 29, 2021 10:49 am This weekend I was sent some emails from Delta advertising service to Iceland. Iceland is opening themselves to vaccinated tourists. The criteria that Iceland seems to accept as a 'vaccine passport' lines up with the card I got when we got the shots. All the data they ask for is on it. Would I risk a 5 hour flight to find out? Probably not but I will say it is tempting in some capacity.
As someone who went to Iceland a couple of years ago, I 100% agree. Some people get sticker shock going there (and granted hotels are a bit pricey), but since all food prices have VAT added in, and there's no real tipping in restaurants, the in country spend isn't really that bad, especially when the exchange rate is super favorable.malchior wrote: ↑Mon Mar 29, 2021 11:45 amI'm more worried I'll get there and they won't like my documents.Lorini wrote: ↑Mon Mar 29, 2021 11:37 amGiven the airlines ventilation for the planes, plus your vaccination, you should be alright. For me, I'm not paying money to go to some place that's not warm with beaches and waiters in cute swim trunks serving me Margaritas .malchior wrote: ↑Mon Mar 29, 2021 10:49 am This weekend I was sent some emails from Delta advertising service to Iceland. Iceland is opening themselves to vaccinated tourists. The criteria that Iceland seems to accept as a 'vaccine passport' lines up with the card I got when we got the shots. All the data they ask for is on it. Would I risk a 5 hour flight to find out? Probably not but I will say it is tempting in some capacity.
The beaches sound nice as well but Iceland is a surprisingly affordable nice vacation spot. It has beautiful views, hot springs, and the such. It's a good unplug type vacation spot.
LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Mon Mar 29, 2021 9:27 amTo get a passport you either get the vaccine or go through the minimal effort needed to fake proof that you got the vaccine.Blackhawk wrote: ↑Mon Mar 29, 2021 9:06 amHow are people who have already had their vaccinations supposed to prove it? From what I've understood, the actual records are inconsistent and shoddy, and the little appointment cards they give you are mostly worthless as proof of anything - there's no security baked into them at all.
Most providers keep detailed records even if the recipient doesn't get a copy. It will be easy to prove who got the vaccine in most cases. It won't be easy to prove who didn't.
“I’m going to lose the script, and I’m going to reflect on the recurring feeling I have of impending doom,” she said.
Cases of the virus are up about 10% over the past week to about 60,000 cases per day, with both hospitalizations and deaths ticking up as well, Walensky said. She warned that without immediate action, the U.S. could follow European countries into another spike in cases and suffer needless deaths.
“I have to share the truth, and I have to hope and trust you will listen,” she added.
“The president has not held back in calling for governors, leaders, the American people to continue to abide by the public health guidelines,” said White House press secretary Jen Psaki. “He will continue to do that through all of his engagements.”
Walensky and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, appealed to elected officials, community leaders and everyday Americans to maintain social distancing measures and mask wearing.
“We are doing things prematurely,” Fauci said, referring to moves to ease up on restrictions. Walensky appealed to Americans, “Just please hold on a little while longer.”
She added: “We are not powerless. We can change this trajectory of the pandemic.”